Microsoft has paused new purchases of carbon dioxide removal credits, pulling back from a market it essentially built single-handedly. The decision, which took effect around April 2026, comes as the company funnels enormous sums into AI infrastructure, a buildout that pushed its emissions up 23.4% in 2024 alone.
The company still says it wants to be carbon negative by 2030. It just isn’t buying new credits to get there right now.
The carbon king steps aside
Microsoft accounted for somewhere between 79% and 90% of all global CDR purchases in recent years. In 2025, the company contracted 45 million metric tonnes of carbon removals, roughly double what it bought in 2024, backed by more than $750 million in investments.
Chief Sustainability Officer Melanie Nakagawa has stressed that the program isn’t dead, just recalibrating. Microsoft says it will honor existing contracts and continue some limited procurement activities. The Climate Innovation Fund also remains operational. But new credit purchases are frozen with no public timeline for when they’ll resume.
